I just made a rye and caraway loaf – a lovely, woody, autumnal bread for this week’s sandwich fun – and, while having a quiet Sunday paper-focused drink in my local pub (a lovely, woody, autumnal kind of thing to do) mentioned this to Eamon, the pub’s owner/chef/culinary genius. From which conversation I learned that rye grain, when rotted (called rye ergot), develops hallucinogenic properties, and that those accused of witchery in the middle ages were more often than not luckless tillers of the land, who had happened to eat rotted rye…
For those of you familiar with the experience of taking hallucinogens, I think you’d agree that a fatal visit to the dunking stool would have to be counted as one of the heaviest trips of them all.
This story seems to be borne out by the most cursory bit of Google research – the Salem trials followed an outbreak of rye ergot, and that ‘the spasms suffered by ergot victim were called St. Vitus Dance’ – or the ‘Dance of Death’.
Which is a darned fine piece of trivia to learn of a Sunday evening. I’m looking forward to my sandwiches, albeit with a slight sense of trepidation.